One Bounty Hunter, Lightly Singed
by Igorina
Summary: Following the crash of Slave 1 on Florrum, Hondo Ohnaka muses on his past relationship with a certain 'very dangerous woman'. Hondo x Aurra. Now appended with an additional ficlet
1. One Bounty Hunter, Lightly Singed

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or settings to be found herein.

A/N: I wanted to write something amusing featuring Hondo and Aurra, alas this turned out a tad more melancholy than I'd planned. I know the pairing is one that made a fair few people go 'ew squick' when watching Lethal Trackdown but I really like it. I'm not sure how much of Aurra's EU backstory is going to be used in the actual Clone Wars series, so I've tried to keep things vague here.

-0-

As the light dimmed over Florrum, the last remaining fires continued to spark and fizzled on the ground around Slave 1.

High above, on the cliffs overlooking the crash site, one Weequay pirate and one decidedly bored Monkey Lizard stood watching the smoke rise.

"So this is how it ends," said Hondo Ohnaka, shaking his head. "I always said that she'd go down in a ball of flames."

The Monkey Lizard made a sharp shrieking sound that roughly translated as: _'Good riddance to bad rubbish '_.

Hondo sympathised the sentiment but couldn't quite bring himself to share it. His own feelings on the matter were presently an odd mixture of relief, sadness and acute annoyance. Relief, because he'd managed to avoid getting drawn into Aurra's final catastrophe; sadness, because, despite everything, he was still going to miss her; annoyance, because a good portion of his base would have to be repaired and... well, if she'd had the sense to quit while she was ahead she wouldn't have just been incinerated.

The Jedi hadn't found a body. Though they had, Hondo had heard, managed to detect enough toasted organic matter on the ship to come to the conclusion that Aurra Sing was no more. Looking at the burned out cockpit, it seemed unlikely that they were mistaken. The ship – and what a beauty that one was – would be salvageable, but that particular area seemed to have been utterly gutted.

He wished, in a way, that there had been a body: something to give a decent send-off to. On the other hand, he supposed that it had at least probably not been a prolonged and excruciating death. Just one short, sharp explosion and no more Aurra. He didn't like to think of her suffering at the end. She probably, in the eyes of most right thinking individuals in the galaxy, _deserved_ to suffer, but he had loved her once, in his way, and had never quite managed to shake the fondness.

"You never did listen, Aurra," he said to the wreckage, with a heavy sigh, before taking a glug from the flask of Corellian brandy he'd been carrying with him. "I told you that tangling with the Jedi wasn't a good idea." He refrained from mentioning that until that altercation with the farmers on Felucia, he himself hadn't quite come so well and truly to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth it.

"You shouldn't have dragged Jango's son into this either," he went on, scolding the remnants of the burning ship. "I know that you always said you had unfinished business with the Jedi, but he's just a child, and now... well, who knows what will happen to him now." He never had known quite why she'd always loathed the Jedi with the intensity that she did; and, given the ferocity of her reaction on the two occasions on which he'd enquired about the subject, he hadn't been inclined to pursue the matter either.

Jango had known. Hondo was almost certain of that. But Jango had been an honourable man and not the sort to tattle without good reason (or at least good payment).

With a nostalgic half smile, he recalled how Jango had been the first person to voice misgivings about the relationship with Aurra. Well, 'voice misgivings' was perhaps something of an understatement; 'question both Hondo's sanity and his commitment to remaining amongst the living' was perhaps a more accurate description.

_"She's a walking personality disorder,"_ the bounty hunter had berated, eyeing him in a manner that very strongly and directly conveyed the sentiment that a man Hondo's age really ought to know better._ "A good hunter, yes. Hell, she's one of the best. But you can't trust her any further than a rabid Gundark on death sticks. There's something broken in her head, Hondo, and it's got nothing to do with that damned antenna. Woman's got demons no sane man would touch with a twelve foot electrostaff."_

Ah, if only he'd listened and taken heed. But then, she'd been exotic and beautiful to him, and that reckless, self-destructive, single-minded determination to do whatever it took to get whatever she wanted had been so very exciting and appealing. She was dangerous as hell and he'd liked it.

He had only backed away when it had become clear that his crew would mutiny if he let her drag him (and by association them) into any more of her schemes. People, other than the ones who could give her something that she wanted, were utterly expendable to Aurra, and the other members of the Ohnaka Gang had been quick to catch on this fact.

She hadn't reacted well when he'd finally put his foot down and said no to her. Not well at all. The fact that he was willing to put something else above her had been nothing short of betrayal and abandonment in her eyes, even if the 'something else' in question was the continuation of his own existence.

Not that this enmity had ever actually stopped her from subsequently turning up on his doorstep at whim whenever she wanted something: be it repairs, material goods, information, sex, or just somebody to complain to when things weren't going her way. And for reasons even he himself didn't entirely understand he'd always been pleased to see her, even if nobody else on Florrum had.

Ah well, doubtless his crew would be relieved that they would no longer be at risk of crossing the path of Hurricane Aurra. Not that that really made him feel any better about the fact that she was charcoal and ashes, but that was his problem, not theirs.

He snorted and took another drink.

The Monkey Lizard made a noise of disapproval.

Hondo gave a shrug and a crooked smile. "Ah Mukmuk, you didn't know her like I did."

This was true: few people, if any, could have ever had quite the same insight into Aurra Sing that he did. He more than anybody else, with the possible exception of Jango Fett, knew that she was, well, _had been_ - strange to have to use past tense like that - a narcissistic sociopath who was utterly incapable of caring for anybody or anything above and beyond herself.

Yet in spite of this he had still cared about her. And there had sometimes been moments – few and far between, granted – when she'd say or do something that indicated that she hadn't been thinking solely of her next bounty. Like the time she'd turned up to bust him out of that jail in the Corporate Sector, or when she'd passed on those access codes to those storage depots in the Mygeeto system without so much as asking for a cut of the loot.

Then, of course, there had been the more _physical_ side of their relationship. He suspected that there were at least some people in the galaxy who could understand why he'd miss _that_: the way she used to wrap her long, long legs around him, the way she could veer between domineering and coy at moment's notice, those contented little grunts she sometimes made when pulled closed, the way she–

The Monkey Lizard gave a shriek of exasperation.

"One minute," he said, beginning to regret his decision to bring Mukmuk with him. There had always been something of an animosity between his pet and his ex-lover. The former resenting the way the latter could aim a handheld projectile with precise accuracy; and the latter being somewhat put out that Hondo seemed to credit the former with better sense and judgement than herself.

He raised the flask to the wreck. "Well, my dear, I hope you're at peace, wherever you are." Truth be told, he tended to doubt the existence of any kind of afterlife, but the thought of Aurra not scowling and smirking and breaking kneecaps _somewhere_, was oddly painful, and so he chose, for now, not to entertain the possibility. Then he took yet another drink, turned towards his speeder bike and... at once became acutely aware of the smell of burned hair.

Sensing danger, he looked around him and saw, to his utter astonishment, a humanoid form haul itself through a break in the rocks on the edge of the precipice: a slender humanoid form with pale skin, long fingers and a distinctly singed appearance.

"Aurra!"

The form winced and limped towards him, her right arm twisted at an agonising looking angle.

"How did you manage to–?"

"Blew the cockpit, went into the caves," she said simply, glaring at him as though he'd somehow been responsible for the whole debacle.

This did not stop him from grinning like an idiot as he moved to prop her up; slipping an arm around her and letting her grab on to his shoulders with her left arm. She immediately relaxed into his hold, but didn't thank him, opting instead to mutter something about that little wretch of a Jedi Padawan and how she intended to kill her slowly and painfully.

He gave an exaggerated sigh. "My dear, don't you ever learn?"

"You wouldn't understand," she muttered through gritted teeth.

"No, I suppose not." He decided that this wasn't the time or place to point out that he had once asked, but that she'd responded in much the same manner that she always did when he asked her a question that she _really_ didn't like.

"I thought you were dead," he went on, noting but very definitely refraining from mentioning that most of what remained of her charred hair would have to go. The long, auburn ponytail was one of the very few things that she was vain to the point of impracticality about, and he really didn't want to be the one to break the news that she'd have to rely on artificial extensions for the next few years.

"No such luck, Hondo. You don't get rid of me that easily." He thought that there was a trace of amusement in her voice, but couldn't quite be sure.

"Oh, now come, you know that I'm glad to see you alive."

She snorted and then winced in pain as some slight movement or other caught one of her injuries.

"They took Jango's son," he said, voice taking on a hint of disapproval.

As overwhelmingly glad as he was that she wasn't dead, he still couldn't quite overlook the way that she'd bailed on Boba like that. True it was completely in character for Aurra, who he well knew could never be trusted to take care of anybody apart from Aurra; but Boba was just a boy, and a young boy at that, and it hadn't been right or _honourable _of her to abandon him after dragging him so far down her own dark and twisted path.

"I can get him back." Her tones were dismissive.

"They'll take him to the penitentiary on Coruscant," he warned, fully aware that this wouldn't make any difference whatsoever to her plans for the future, but somehow compelled to do so anyway.

With her good hand, she grabbed the flask from him and drained the contents, before handing it back. "As I say, I can get him back. He wouldn't be the first prisoner I've helped to spring from there."

Hondo knew that she'd been part of Cad Bane's team in that whole Ziro the Hutt affair. However, he doubted Bane would be interested in any ploy to spring Fett the Younger. Jango and Bane had never been able to tolerate each other's company, even when it would have been mutually beneficial.

No point debating the matter here and now though; or indeed, at any point on the future. Aurra would, as always, do whatever Aurra wanted to do; and the only sane course of action would be to get out of the way until the dust had settled. Hondo, despite being happily embroiled in a life of piracy, tried to take reasonably sane courses of action these days, he really did. And, as much as he might want his late friend's son to be released from the Coruscant Hellhole, he knew that breaking into a maximum security prison in the heart of the Republic's capital in an attempt to free him wasn't anything any sentient being with an ounce of sense would try.

"You don't think I can do it, do you?" she said, sounding at once more woozy than indignant. He wasn't sure if it was the bust leg, the broken arm, the second degree burns, the exhaustion, the half-flask of hard liquor she'd just downed or some combination thereof, but he suspected that it would be wise to get her back to base before she completely lost all lucidity.

"I think that you need medical attention," he replied, trying to coax her in the direction of the speeder bike.

For a few seconds it seemed as though she would try to resist, opting instead to stare out at the crippled form of Slave 1. Then, suddenly relenting, she made a noise that was half-way between a grunt and a sigh, let her head slump onto his shoulder and allowed herself to be led away from the wreck. "D'you think it's salvageable?"

"The ship?"

She made a noise of assent.

"Probably. The cockpit and anterior weapons systems will have to be completely replaced, but I think that it can be repaired."

"Mmm good." She gave a groggy half-smile and kissed his neck.

He thought it perhaps best not to mention that, when Slave 1 had been suitably refitted, he had absolutely no intention of giving it back to her. Pleased as he was that she'd survived, he wasn't about to let her leave Florrum without extracting some kind of recompense for the phenomenal amount of damage she'd managed to cause. However, once done up, that classic Firespray of Jango's would, he thought, just about cover it.


	2. Unexpected Delivery

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or settings to be found herein.

A/N: This little ficlet was inspired by Hondo's 'Not mine, I take it' line in Lethal Trackdown. Most of it was actually written a month or so back and thus wasn't intended to be a direct follow up to the preceding ficlet (which I posted as complete), but as they can be seen to follow on from one another if one wishes, I decided to append it here rather than make a new post. As is the case with the vast majority of my fic, it's not meant to be taken entirely seriously.

On another note, thank you to Centaurgirl21 for your kind comments on the first ficlet (though I fear you may have mistaken me for somebody else). I'll be interested to see how your story progresses.

-0-

It was fair to say that Hondo Ohnaka was not having the best of days.

It had started badly, with him awakening to the sound of one of his men inadvertently taking out an entire munitions store in an ill-advised thermal detonator juggling accident.

Then, as was the way of these things, events had proceeded to get progressively worse: with the crash of the compound's inventory system, the destruction of one of his favourite antique blasters, Pilf Mukmuk developing a rather messy case of food poisoning, his least favourite aunt holo-communicating her intention to come a visit and the discovery that his entire personal stash of spice-adulterated Twi'lek liquor had been infested with some unfamiliar strain of ugly green maggot.

Therefore, it didn't entirely surprise him to find, on returning to Florrum after a blessedly straightforward excursion to helpfully free an off-course Mon Calamari merchant carrier of its cargo, that something had gone wrong.

He did not, on stepping off the cruiser immediately know what it was, but he knew the warning signs. The sudden quiet of the pirates who'd remained on-world as he and the other returnees disembarked. The side-long glances. The quiet, almost inaudible mutterings that all had that the distinct, agitated undertone of 'the boss _is not _going to be pleased'.

He was about to accost one of them at random and demand to know what was going on, when he spotted a group of Weequay standing around what seemed to be some kind of open-topped crate. Guessing from the way all but one of them fled (in as nonchalant a manner as they could) as he looked at them, that the contents must be the cause of the present disquiet, he turned and strode on over.

Then his eyes widened as he saw that the crate was not so much a crate as a bassinette.

A bassinette containing a small infant whose features and stubby little head-tails strongly hinted at Weequay parentage, but whose paleness and tuft of auburn hair suggested some kind of hybridisation.

As he stared, it looked back, its green eyes somehow managing to convey extreme disgruntlement.

The remaining Weequay, a pirate by the name of Sholto who was one of the younger and more hapless members of the gang, looked at Hondo with a stricken expression.

"She just turned up handed it to me and left," he said, as if protesting his innocence in the whole affair. "I tried to get her to wait until you were back, but she said that there was a note in the cot and that she was on a tight schedule and... and then it started screaming and didn't stop until it saw one of the Monkey Lizards jumping around."

Hondo didn't bother to ask who the 'she' in question was. He was a quick thinker and the pieces were already falling into place and forming an awful picture in his mind. Instead he reached down tentatively into the bassinette, picked up the datapad at the foot and tried to take in the unencrypted contents.

_Hondo, _

_Remember how 'friendly' things got between us last time I was here? You know, before I realised that you were planning to keep the ship. Well, this is the result. _

_Yes, she is yours! _

_Yes, I am sure! What kind of woman do you think I am?_

_Her name is Ruby. She's three standard months old. She's at least half your fault._

_Anyway, I've got a job lined up with Bane and the nanny droid broke yesterday (cheap Nemoidian crap), so I thought that it was time you took some responsibility._

_Feed her a mixture of Nerf blood and Standardised Baby Formula No. 5288 and make sure she's kept clean. I'll be back for her in ten days. Let any Jedi near her and I'll castrate you. Let them take a blood sample for Midichlorian testing and I'll use a blunt dagger to do it._

_Love,_

_Aurra._

Cursing, he wondered what he could have possibly done to deserve this. All right, he lived a life of shameless piracy, but surely he wasn't, in the grand scheme of things, all _that_ bad and... and everybody knew that Humans and Weequay couldn't interbreed. Okay, fair enough, Aurra was half-human and half-_other_, but it should stand to reason that if the _other_, whatever that was (another thing she'd never told him), could successfully interbreed with humans it ought to be incompatible with Weequay.

He looked at Sholto.

"When did she leave?"

"Two hours ago."

He cursed again, this time a small, treacherous part of his mind (that sounded suspiciously like his least favourite aunt) berated him for using such language in front of a small child. If Aurra had departed that long ago, there was no way that he'd be able to track her down and make her take his— _her_ child back.

Turning his gaze back to the baby, he scrutinised her some more. She was a tiny, little thing. Far more fragile and helpless looking than anything containing half of his and half of Aurra's DNA really had a right to be.

Sholto took this switch in his boss's attention as a cue that it was permissible for him to leave. Something which he did at a speed that would have done him great credit had he ever seen fit to use it during the few raids he'd participated in thus far in his pirating career.

Hondo knelt down and continued to stare at the child, who was now staring back, disgruntlement replace with a gaze of intent curiosity. Not entirely cognizant of what he was doing, he reached out to the infant, who proceeded to curl her hand around his little finger.

He groaned and fought back the urge to curse. "Fine," he said to the child, trying to sound as displeased as he could without actually being threatening. "You can stay here for ten days. _Just ten_. After that you're going back to your mother. And if she doesn't come here and collect you I'll find out where she is and send you back to her on a third class courier ship."

As if on cue the child intensified its grip on his finger and made a small whimpering sound.

"Don't look at me like that," he said, groaning. "This is all Aurra's fault."

He could already feel himself weakening though. There was just something in that curious little gaze.

-0-

A/N: I don't usually go for baby!fic, honestly I don't, but after hearing Hondo utter the immortal words 'Not mine, I take it' I couldn't help but start snickering to myself at the thought of him and Aurra actually having a half-Weequay, quarter-human, quarter-other baby. I named their poor, unfortunate progeny Ruby in honour of Ruby Journey, a bounty hunter from Simon R. Green's fantastic Deathstalker series (and also because I'm a bit rubbish at coming up with more Star Warsy type names).


End file.
